There was a click as the call was answered, and Leslie cleared his throat to speak. “Yes, thank you. Ready when London comes in.” He nodded, as if the operator were in the room. Then he replaced the receiver, pushed back his chair, picked up the sheaf of papers, and took one step toward the door. The telephone rang. Leslie did not look back, but kept walking. Maisie waited for the door to close behind him, and picked up the receiver.
“Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Well, you’ve been having some fun, haven’t you, lass?”
“Just so I know you’re who I think you are, tell me your favorite pub.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” MacFarlane paused. “We’ve trained you too well. It’s the Cuillins of Skye.”
“Right. As you can imagine, Mr. MacFarlane, I wouldn’t mind a swift visit there right now.”
“Mr. MacFarlane, is it now? All right, Maisie. Get it off your chest.”
“In the few days since I arrived in Munich, I have been followed and engaged in conversation by an American—from the United States Justice Department, I might add—who maintains, with his hand on his heart, that he has my six. Elaine Otterburn is in all likelihood under suspicion for the murder of an SS officer, though I also have a suspicion about that little problem.” Maisie took a deep breath to keep her voice steady. “More to the point, in the course of my duty to bring Leon Donat home to England, I may have consigned a poor sick man to torture beyond belief—that’s the one breaking my heart, Robbie, and I have to live with it. Now then, what’s all this about having to give Leslie a list of my plans for each day? I have a job to do here, and that is to find Leon . . . my father . . . and if he’s still alive, bring him home. Given what I’ve heard about what’s happened in Austria, I suppose we’re going to need all the boffins we can get. And one more thing—does Leslie know who I am? Or are we two being moved around like puppets?”
“One thing at a time, Maisie. Here’s my colleague for you.”
There was an audible click on the line, and Brian Huntley spoke.
“Due care, Miss Donat. Due care. Do you understand?”
“I may have slipped up a bit with Mr. M.”
“I am by nature a very careful man.”
“Tell me what’s going on. I’m being allowed to remain here for three days—I intend to search for my father.”
“Right you are. Amateurs have been known to be lucky, but do remember that the German government is beholden to search for Mr. Donat, and there are other resources being deployed to help.”
“I take it my intentions meet with your approval.”
“I see no problem, Miss Donat—as long as you don’t tread on any very sensitive toes. I look forward to your regular reports.”
Maisie paused. “Has Miss Elaine Otterburn arrived back in England?”
“No. You had a most regrettable meeting with Miss Otterburn.”
“It was a difficult situation. I made a promise.”
“Difficult situation!” Robbie MacFarlane’s retort in the background was loud enough for her to hear. “You knew better than that, Maisie.”
“Indeed,” said Huntley, in response to Maisie’s explanation, and—Maisie suspected—to Macfarlane’s comment. “We remain troubled by the fact that plans regarding your journey to Munich were so readily available. However, that leak has been stemmed.” Huntley cleared his throat. “Please keep me apprised of your progress. I take it you will be looking for the people—professors and the like—your father visited before his disappearance.”
Maisie avoided confirming Huntley’s assumption, commenting, “I’m hampered by the fact that tomorrow is a Sunday—but I will keep you informed.”
“Very good. And do take care, Miss Donat. We will be working from this end in the search for your father.”
The meeting at the Nazi headquarters was a formality. Security was as intense as before, but there was an urgent jubilation in the air. Men rushed back and forth; motor cars drew up and left, filled with black-clad officers of the Schutzstaffel. Maisie answered one familiar question after another, none posing a challenge. Once again she assured Hans Berger that the man at Dachau truly was not her father.
For a moment a silence fell. Berger dispatched the junior officer on an errand—a ruse, Maisie suspected, so they might have a private conversation.
“Our fellow officer remains missing, Miss Donat.” Berger’s English was flawless, as before.
“I beg your pardon? I don’t understand how that has anything to do with me—or the search for my father.”
Berger leaned forward. “But you visited Miss Otterburn, and now she’s also disappeared.”
“We already discussed the problem of Miss Otterburn. She might well have taken my advice and returned to her family—or she could have absconded with your colleague. I really don’t know—and at the moment, if I may say so, there is nothing I can do about either of them, because I would not know where to start.”
Maisie felt the strength in her voice, and she feared she’d been too forthright. But to her surprise, Berger appeared to withdraw. He rose from his chair, stepped to one side, and took up a place by the window, his hands clasped behind his back. Maisie remained in her seat, silent.
“I know you have no information for me, Miss Donat. But if at any point you do, please see that I receive word without delay.”
Maisie was about to reply when Berger turned. His eyes, she saw, seemed red. She cast her gaze down toward the handbag on her lap, as if searching for a handkerchief or a pen, then met his again.
“Yes, of course.” Her answer was firm.
The junior officer returned, handed another clutch of papers to Berger, who nodded. “See Miss Donat out to meet Mr. Leslie,” he instructed his assistant. He did not look up again, and she did not offer a formal word of departure. Soon she was in the motor car with Leslie, recounting to him every detail of the meeting—with the exception of the tears she had seen in Berger’s eyes.
“Well, that’s a relief,” said Leslie. “Nothing of note, everything in order—with a bit of luck, we won’t have to see this place again.”
Maisie said nothing. Though there was no indication of what had happened in the days since his death, she felt sure Luther Gramm’s body would not be found—and suspected Berger had orchestrated the removal and disposal of the young man’s remains. Berger’s attempt to hide his emotions while discussing the disappearance of the couple pointed to a deeper connection with either Luther Gramm or John Otterburn’s daughter. Hadn’t Mark Scott intimated as much? Or perhaps it was fear itself that had affected the officer—even if he was not implicated, perhaps he guessed that his colleague was dead.
But in truth, Maisie admitted to herself, she had no evidence that Berger knew anything about Gramm’s disappearance. All she had was conjecture—and Mark Scott’s innuendo.
“Stimme der Freiheit.” Voice of Freedom. Maisie saw the words torn to shreds, scattered across the floor as she peered through the lower ground-floor window into the darkened interior of an almost derelict house, flanked by others of the same age and in a similar state of repair. With her hands cupped around her eyes, she squinted, trying to see if there might be another way into the building.
Following the interview at Nazi headquarters, Maisie had been taken to the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, where a room had been reserved for three nights. She asked the clerk if the room might be available for an additional two nights, should they be required. Yes, he said, thus far the room was not booked beyond the Monday night.
Now she was free to do as she pleased—to a point. Without doubt someone would be charged with keeping tabs on her. In order to foil any surveillance of her movements, she took one bus after another and walked along byways she did not know, hoping they might lead her back to her map, and on her way. She had the name and address of the press for the journal Leon Donat had been accused of supporting, in a poorer district known as the Au, and though she knew it might be clear
to anyone following her that this would be her destination, she wanted just a little time on her own to look around.
Maisie picked up the solid padlock again, felt its weight in her hand, and rolled it on its back. She let it drop in frustration. Leaning toward the window, she peered in, again searching for a way in. It was then that she noticed movement at the corner of her eye. She gasped, straining to see. A cat emerged from a corner of the room and stretched out, yawning. It clawed at the sheets of paper strewn across the floor, then sat down to lick its paws. Maisie stepped back.
She listened to the street above and then made her way up steps flanked by moldy green walls oozing freezing water, and looked both ways along the street before stepping out. At the next corner she turned into a cobblestone alley. Which of these back doors led to the former home of the Voice of Freedom? The rear entrance of one of the houses was boarded up—the planks of wood rotten, the nails rusty. Verboten! The warning was clear. Maisie stepped toward the planks, pulling one back. The door was in a similar state, the wood soft and worm-ridden.
Maisie stopped for a moment. One of the elements of life in Germany that had impressed her was its citizens’ attention to detail, as if every job worth doing—whether that job was building a house, cleaning a street, or boarding up a disused property—must be perfect. This work might have been good enough when it was completed, but it had not lasted—and that struck Maisie as unusual. But there again, the whole of Munich seemed to shout a warning, that you dare not cross the Reich.
The alley remained quiet, not a soul in sight. Wishing she had worn trousers, Maisie pulled away another plank, tried the lock, and pushed against the door. As she continued to apply pressure, she felt it begin to give. The lock was shearing away from the wood, but she needed something else to make the final break. She looked around and picked up a piece of old metal with which she might lever the lock from the door. It was rusty, but strong enough. She pushed the metal between wood and lock and pulled back, feeling the wood splinter. With a sound like a firecracker, the door fell open.
Maisie looked both ways along the alley, then up at the windows of the neighboring houses. A shaft of daylight from behind fell past her through the open door as far as the steps within. She opened her handbag, pulled out a box of matches, and struck one. It burned long enough for a glance around a room now revealed to be a scullery, with a large square sink to the left, an old cast iron stove to the right. Shelves hung on the walls, and the door to a larder stood open. The floor was wet, with water seeping from a leaking pipe under the sink. It was so cold Maisie felt as if she were turning blue from head to toe. She lit another match, located an inner door, and stepped toward a narrow passageway. In the light of a fresh match, she saw dark brown smears across the wall. She drew closer, and as the match flickered and died, she knew it was blood. Plaster fallen from the ceiling above crunched underfoot. She reached out toward the door she knew was to her right, and pushed it open.
Two bright eyes peered at her. Light from the window at the front slanted across the black cat. Its coat rippled, and with a yowl it leaped past her and into the passageway. She turned back to the room. Enough light filtered in from the street to show her what had come to pass here. Copies of the Voice of Freedom, torn to shreds, were strewn across the floor. She suspected the remnants had been left as a warning to others who were thinking of crossing Hitler’s regime. Fragments of cast iron were piled in the corner. She lit another match and brought the flame closer; they were parts from what had once been a small printing press. Ink had been poured across the floor, mixed with the reddish-brown stains that could only be dried blood.
It was all Maisie could do to remain on her feet. She held out her hand to steady herself. As if she were being taken back in time, she could see before her what had happened in this place. A small cadre of like-minded men and women had gathered here to write and publish what they believed to be the truth about Herr Hitler’s Third Reich. They had been discovered, and they had paid the price. Were they all dead? No, not all. The young man to whom Leon Donat had offered a job had escaped, according to reports. But had Leon Donat been here? As she stood in the room, she believed he had—for no other reason than it was something she wanted to believe. Given all that she had seen in Munich, she wanted to believe that Leon Donat had supported the dissidents who dared to speak out. She wanted to believe that he had, in fact, escaped with his life—or died because he was a man committed to truth. She shivered.
The meager light had begun to fade. She knew she should leave and return to the hotel.
As she stepped into the passageway, a feline sound, a squawk almost birdlike, caused her to stop.
“What are you doing here?” She bent down to run her hand across the sleek black coat. “I think you’re a witch’s cat.”
The creature wrapped its body around her ankles, so she chivvied it away with her hand. “Go on now, don’t trip me up.”
Holding on to the now-broken door, Maisie stepped with care onto the rough ground that led to the street, only to be met by the screams of two little girls.
“Haben sie keine Angst. Ich werde dir nicht weh tun—ich war gerade auf der suche am Haus.” Do not be afraid. I will not hurt you, I was just looking at the house.
“Bist du ein Geist?”
She laughed. She was not a ghost, she assured them, or a witch—even though a black cat was following her.
One of the girls had hair the color of wheat, her pale blue eyes mirroring the color of her coat, which had a dark blue velvet collar. A blue dress and leather lace-up boots peeked out beneath the coat, a blue scarf was wrapped around her neck, and gloves secured with tape hung below her sleeves.
The other girl’s thick brown hair was tamed in two braids. She too wore a coat, with a matching hat pulled down almost to her eyes. Her gloves were secured to the sleeves of her coat in a similar fashion to those of her friend, and she wore almost identical lace-up boots.
“Is this your cat?” Maisie asked in German.
The dark-haired girl shook her head. “No, but we bring him food when we come.”
“I see, so that’s why you’re here. But it will be getting dark soon, and this doesn’t look like a safe place.”
“This is my friend, Rachel,” the blond girl explained. “We can play together here. No one can see us.”
“And what’s your name?” Maisie smiled to encourage the girls.
“Adele.”
Adele leaned toward Rachel and whispered in her ear. Rachel nodded.
“We’ve seen a ghost here,” said Adele.
Maisie widened her eyes and stepped closer. “You have? Goodness, that is a very scary thing to see.” She cupped her ear as if to hear a secret. “Tell me about the ghost.”
Soon both girls began talking at once, their words tumbling out to form a story. They explained that they came to the street to play together so Adele’s parents could not see them, and on two different occasions they had seen the ghost going in through the door, but they’d never seen him leave.
“Though he might go back to his grave after we’ve gone home.”
The girls nodded in unison, as if in agreement about the ghost’s final destination.
“Do you think he comes often?”
The girls shrugged. Maisie could see they were losing interest.
“We have to go now,” said Adele. “Rachel shouldn’t really be here, because it’s Shabbat. She has to go home before her mother finds out she’s playing.”
“Well, take care on your way home.” Maisie watched as the girls held hands and began to run away. They skipped toward the corner, dropping their hands as they entered the main street.
Maisie pressed her lips together and looked up at the now-darkening sky. She would have liked to go back into the basement, or at least look for whatever it was the “ghost” had come for. But it was time to return to the hotel. Time to go back to her plans.
As she walked away, she thought of all she had seen since arrivi
ng in Munich—of the veneer of ordinary life overlaying something much darker, a mood among the people that pressed down upon her heart so she felt the weight of it on her chest. At times she thought it might stop her breathing. And she knew she had seen something she would never forget, an image that would come back to her unbidden throughout the days of her life: two little German girls, playing in the rubble behind a derelict building because no one would be there to see them meeting.
CHAPTER 14
Maisie made her way back to the hotel by tram and on foot. She was surprised at how easily she was finding her way around, as if the geography of a place were another language and she was developing her ear for the sounds, oft-used words, and the way in which movement echoes speech. She had come to know that every city has its ebb and flow, its tide pools, rivers, and still waters; the time she’d spent wandering had aided her immersion.
She would return to the Au the next day and spend more time in the old building. She was not sure what she might find, but the pull to go back was strong. And Sunday would be a quiet day, though there might be celebrations to mark Austria being brought into the fold with Herr Hitler’s Third Reich. In any case, she’d make the journey; she knew she had missed something. In addition, she wanted to return once more to the house where Elaine Otterburn had lived. More than anything, she wanted to find Leon Donat, though now even more she wondered if he was still alive.
In her room, she set to work. She pulled a large paper liner from one of the drawers in the dresser between the windows and placed it on the table. It was just the right size for a case map. On it she wrote Leon Donat’s name and circled it, then those of Gilbert Leslie, Mark Scott, Elaine Otterburn, and Hans Berger. Sitting back, she began to write notes across the sheet of paper, using a lipstick to make a cross here or circle another name or idea. She had a feeling that whoever the girls had seen coming to the basement where the Voice of Freedom was printed had been there to collect something—but what? She’d hardly been able to see the first time she stumbled into the building. She would need a torch. How would she obtain such a thing on a Sunday, when shops were closed? She would have to ask for one at the hotel, and come up with a good excuse for needing the Taschenlampe.